We heard this from Gordon Brewer this morning: There is also a view. It was put by one columnist in a newspaper this morning very bluntly that at the beginning of this there was an understandable desire to clear out acute wards in hospitals in order to make room for what was expected to be a possible overwhelming surge in coronavirus patients and that in effect elderly people were dumped out of hospitals into care homes! Now there is a letter from NHS England but that wouldn’t apply up here which talked about getting 30% clear-out rates in hospitals. Did that happen … Continue reading FACT CHECK: There was NO ‘spike’ in care home admissions in March triggering mass deaths

In an interview this morning Gordon Brewer said: There is also a view. It was put by one columnist in a newspaper this morning very bluntly that at the beginning of this there was an understandable desire to clear out acute wards in hospitals in order to make room for what was expected to be a possible overwhelming surge in coronavirus patients and that in effect elderly people were dumped out of hospitals into care homes! Now there is a letter from NHS England but that wouldn’t apply up here which talked about getting 30% clear-out rates in hospitals. Did that happen … Continue reading BBC Scotland presenter appears to accuse UK Government of dumping old folk out of hospitals into care homes with resultant surge in deaths

This morning, Gordon Brewer opened with: The man who represents Scotland’s private care homes says new government guidelines in homes which don’t have coronavirus are just wrong and that there was a spike of admissions to care homes in March as hospital cleared beds to be used with patients with covid-19. As it transpires, he does appear to agree with the first point but not the second. Brewer tries to pressurise him into agreeing. It becomes one of the worst examples of unethical, bad, journalism I’ve seen and certainly the worst from a supposedly grown man. Brewer, like any 18 … Continue reading BBC Scotland’s Gordon Brewer not just trying to put words into, but RAM them into, a reluctant interviewee’s mouth

From Opinium based on 13th May responses by 169 Scots, we see, to Jackson’s horror, that 45% of Scottish Tories trust the FM to inform them of coronavirus. Only 41% distrust her. That’s no way to run a campaign to become the next FM, as I feel sure I heard him say he would become in 2021. Stop it! Be serious! 64% of Labour and 53% of Lib Dems also trust her but only 85% of SNP supporters seem to. What? Wait till Glen see this: Threat to Sturgeon as not all SNP supporters trust her! It looks at first … Continue reading Majority of Scottish Tories trust Nicola! Is Carlaw for the scrapheap?

How does a member of the party founded by Keir Hardie get to the point when she can consider praising the UK Parliament, especially the Lords, just to have a wee huffy dig at the Scottish Parliament? By all means criticise but to feel comfortable using the Lords as your evidence tells us all we need to know about Dugdale’s values – any that will get her attention? Dreaming of Baroness Dugdale? The Scottish Parliament has no non-elected second chamber, stuffed with 784 aristocrats and former MPs being rewarded for loyalty, snuffling in the trough of expenses. There are 178 … Continue reading It was a dark day Kezia for your party when they embraced the Lords

In a YouGov poll on 13-14 May, with a Scottish sub-sample of 145, Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak come out best but only at 9% and 8% approval respectively. Boris and Raab are at minus 46, Hancock at minus 33 but poor old Priti Patel is at minus 67%! They didn’t ask about Nicola Sturgeon. Wonder why? Continue reading New poll reveals Scots don’t really like any English politicians but when it comes to Priti Patel…….

In a nice inclusive move, YouGov asked Scots what they thought of the English lock-down changes but didn’t ask English respondents what they thought of the Scottish arrangements. Could have been embarrassing? With 145 Scots on 13-14 May, only 14% supported the changes compared to between 30 and 40% for the English regions. So, between 60 and 70% of English respondents don’t support the Boris plan. Only 19% of the Scots thought the new rules were clear compared, again, to between 30 and 40% for the English regions. So, between 60 and 70% of English respondents don’t understand the Boris … Continue reading New poll: Scots most disapproving of English lock-down changes

Above: 7 day average of new infections falls fairly steeply from 4 weeks ago, 319 to 163 yesterday. Below: New deaths fall more slowly but steadily from 50 four weeks ago, to 35, yesterday. Daily number in ICU falling for 33 days now: 5 day average of new cases in care homes falling dramatically: May 2-8: 152 new cases May 9-15: 95 new cases Continue reading Steady improvements

Note: The editor takes responsibility for the headline. From stewartb On the issue of ‘excess deaths’ statistics: given the ‘morass’ of Covid-19 mortality data and the scope it provides for confusion and obfuscation, ‘excess deaths’ are likely to be the most reliable single indicator of the overall public health impact of this pandemic. However, excess (all causes) deaths data for the nations of the UK and the comparable data in Europe – all of which are readily available – seem to have been largely airbrushed out of UK corporate media and BBC coverage. The prime source of these data is … Continue reading Chained to a madman and suffering excess deaths

It was only when researching for my previous piece on infection control failures in care homes that I saw this: Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Foundation Trust Date of inspection visit: 7 January 2020 to 5 February 2020 Date of publication: 30/04/2020 Not all clinical premises where patients received care were safe, clean, well equipped, well furnished, well maintained and fit for purpose. Not all actions from fire risk assessments had been completed, the mitigation from some ligature risks was not appropriate and infection control was not managed well across all sites. Equipment at the East Glade Centre showed … Continue reading Infection control failures across a whole health trust hidden by media